1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a part supplying pallet used for supplying plural parts.
2. Related Background Art
There is conventionally used a part supplying pallet supporting plural component parts, for continuously supplying an automatic assembling apparatus with plural component parts. FIG. 7 shows such conventional part supplying pallet a, which is provided with plural recesses c on the upper face thereof, for accommodating component parts b of a predetermined shape in a predetermined orientation.
Thus, in such conventional part supplying pallet, the orientation of each component part accommodated in said pallet has to be exactly defined, in the supply of component parts for example to an automated assembling machine, for simplifying the control of an assembling robot. For this reason each recess c is defined slightly larger than the external shape of the part b, which cannot therefore move freely in said recess once the part is accommodated therein.
Therefore the insertion of the part in each recess is a rather cumbersome operation. Therefore, insertion of plural parts b with a predetermined orientation into plural recesses c cannot be achieved in a collective manner but has to be made one at a time in repeated operations, so that the efficiency of work is extremely low.
In consideration of the foregoing, there is being developed a technology for taking the image of a pallet with a camera, discriminating the orientation of each part b in the pallet by means of an image recognition apparatus, and adequately picking each part b up by driving a handling device according to the result of said discrimination. Use of such part pickup apparatus utilizing a camera eliminates the necessity for precise definition of orientation of the parts as shown in FIG. 7 and considerably increases the freedom in the insertion of the parts b into the pallet a.
However, there has not been proposed a part supplying pallet optimum for a part pickup apparatus utilizing a camera, and an improvement on the pallet has been longed for.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In consideration of the foregoing, an object of the present invention is to provide a part supplying pallet optimum for a manual part pickup operation and for an automatic part pickup operation utilizing a camera.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a pallet capable of accommodating various articles, wherein partition members for accommodating articles are made detachable to render the areas defined by said partition members variable.